D&D 1E Favorite Obscure Rules from TSR-era D&D

[James Gasik]

Tangent:

One of my long-term gaming buddies (going back to the 80s) interpreted this as Wizards hate sharing spells. In all my decades of playing with him, he has never shared a spell with another caster. If you wanted to learn a spell from a scroll or tome the party acquired, you had to speak up and ask for it.

Sometimes, he even got pissy about it. The last time I asked him about mutual transcription of our PC’s’ respective spellbooks, he flatly stated there was nothing worth knowing in my character’s tome.

Man that's wild. Can't he see the benefit of sharing spells? Or has he convinced himself that this is the way the game should be played?

One wonders how anyone becomes a Wizard at all!

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Man that's wild. Can't he see the benefit of sharing spells? Or has he convinced himself that this is the way the game should be played?

One wonders how anyone becomes a Wizard at all!

He is convinced “this is the way”. He’s even (mis)quoted that rule at me.

And that’s across editions.

The last time this came up, he was playing the latest clone of his platonic ideal Wizard*, and I was playing a multiclassed Diviner who was loosely based on Indiana Jones. As mentioned, I suggested we share resources so that either of us would have a safeguard against spellbook loss. That’s when he lobbed that snarky response.

Ultimately, it didn’t matter. The DM didn’t put our times at risk, but I had to retire the Diviner due to the loss of 2 other players creating a near complete void in divine casters.







* he’s a math whiz, and independently figured out a lot of the stuff that you’d see in the optimization boards…back in the 1980s. His typical wizard spell list didn’t significantly change from AD&D=>3.5Ed.

 

[Man in the Funny Hat]

Wait, is that how that works? I don't recall ever seeing a rule in AD&D that if your stat gets too low to qualify for your class you can't continue to play. If there is, please let me know because that came up a few years back- my friend's Paladin saved some people from a burning house and the DM ruled that his burn scars caused him to lose 4 points of Charisma!

I seem to recall that they clarified (probably Sage Advice) that once you've INITIALLY qualified for a class, you're good. You can't LOSE qualification because of ability score point loss. I think the question had been posed in relation to being multi-classed and supposedly losing one of those classes, but it still applies. Qualifying is only a concern when first creating a character, not after that for keeping it.

Of course, PRACTICAL considerations still matter. I mean, if your pertinent ability scores get drained too severely, you may not be forced to lose your class outright, but might well face insurmountable obstacles if continuing to adventure.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

I seem to recall that they clarified (probably Sage Advice) that once you've INITIALLY qualified for a class, you're good. You can't LOSE qualification because of ability score point loss. I think the question had been posed in relation to being multi-classed and supposedly losing one of those classes, but it still applies. Qualifying is only a concern when first creating a character, not after that for keeping it.

Of course, PRACTICAL considerations still matter. I mean, if your pertinent ability scores get drained too severely, you may not be forced to lose your class outright, but might well face insurmountable obstacles if continuing to adventure.

Dragon 53-

Question:
My monk with a dexterity of 15 was hit in the leg by an arrow. The DM said there would be a temporary loss of 3 dexterity points, and later he said that one of those points would be lost permanently. He took away half of my experience points (the character was first level) and said I’d have to change classes because the character no longer met the minimum requirements for being a monk.. Is this proper? If I change, would I keep any of the abilities of the former class?

Answer-
It sounds like you’ve willingly accepted the “fact” that you have permanently lost a point of dexterity from a relatively minor wound — yet that’s really the heart of your problem. It seems as though your DM was determined to find a way to keep you from playing that character as a monk. This sage doesn’t have ESP, of course, and it’s impossible to know the details of this incident, but any DM who decides to have such a tragedy befall a firstlevel character had better have a very good reason for acting that way. There is nothing in the AD&D rules to suggest that a character has to abandon his or her chosen class because of a drop in an ability score anyway. Ability scores are not infrequently raised or lowered by various magical means, and by certain types of psionic attacks. The life of a character or a long-running campaign would be thrown into disorder if characters were forced to change classes every time an ability score fell below the minimum number originally needed to qualify for membership in that class. If it were mandatory for a character to change class whenever an important ability score was lowered during the course of an adventure, what would be the fate of, for instance, a character rendered feebleminded by a psionic blast attack? Such a character, with (by definition) a combined intelligence and wisdom score of 0-5 for the duration of the feeblemind effect, technically doesn’t qualify for any class of adventurer. There are certain types of magical attacks which cause the loss of a point of strength or some other attribute. Losses of this kind are sometimes only temporary (the strength drain of a shadow, for instance), and even so-called “permanent” changes can be counteracted by different magical means at a later time. There may be occasions when a character has lost so much of his original attribute score that it is not practical or healthy to continue in the same class: A human fighter who has his strength reduced to, say, 6 points is risking ruin if he sets out on an adventure in that condition, and the character might stand a better chance of survival in the long run if he decided to take up magic-using (assuming a sufficiently high intelligence to do that). But the choice should belong to the character and player, not to the DM. In the descriptions of the fighter, paladin and thief player character classes in the Players Handbook, the rules state that certain minimum ability scores are needed to “become” a member of that class. The same reasoning should be applied to those classes where the same wording is not used. In other words, minimum requirements have to be met when a character begins a career in a class, but not necessarily at all times thereafter while that profession is being pursued.


However, the strictures are much more harsh regarding other issues- such as the character with two classes (human "multiclassing), alignment restrictions, and so on. In those cases, the default rule is usually .... you're screwed. See, e.g.- Dragon 53-

Question-
If a monk’s alignment changes from lawful to neutral or chaotic, does he become a thief?
Answer-
Not necessarily. A monk whose alignment changes with respect to law and chaos “loses all monk abilities and must begin again as a first-level character,” according to the Players Handbook. The character’s new class can be anything else. It stands to reason that most “defrocked” monks would choose to be a fighter, cleric or thief, because the prime requisites for those classes are the abilities for which a monk must always have above-average scores. But it’s not impossible for a monk character to have a high intelligence as well as the other high scores, in which case that character might decide to begin again as a magic-user.

 

[James Gasik]

Thanks for the clarification, the very first thing I thought of was "wait a minute, what about aging penalties?". I've never been in a game where they occurred naturally, but I have played in games where you have encounters with ghosts and other sources of magical aging, so the idea of having a character with low scores to begin with, struggling to get by, and then wham, you're middle aged now and that -1 Str penalty means you can't even be a Fighter and have to retire...yeah, that'd be insult on top of injury.

 

[Bedrockgames]

This doesn't quite qualify as an obscure rule, but I loved the Etiquette non-Weapon Proficiency. For me it also captures the fundamental difference in approach to this stuff between TSR and WOTC era:

The entry was a little different I believe in the 1989 edition of the PHB (this is the black cover revised that came out in the mid-90s). But don't feel like digging for that in my stack of books.

I just like that it preserves the RP by having it function more like a knowledge skill

Also NWPs being 100% optional and one of two major methods in 2E, is something I think a lot of people missed (I have gamed with a number of folks who seemed to think they were core to the game----but most modules I played didn't even bother with them).

 

[Voadam]

A human fighter who has his strength reduced to, say, 6 points is risking ruin if he sets out on an adventure in that condition, and the character might stand a better chance of survival in the long run if he decided to take up magic-using (assuming a sufficiently high intelligence to do that). But the choice should belong to the character and player, not to the DM.

Except he can't.

To switch class you need not only a 17 in the principal attribute(s) of the new class you need a 15 in the current one(s). You also need to be human.

So a fighter drained of strength down to a 6 by a shadow or a magical pool cannot switch to a new class. New rules would have to be created to allow them to do so.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

Except he can't.

To switch class you need not only a 17 in the principal attribute(s) of the new class you need a 15 in the current one(s). You also need to be human.

So a fighter drained of strength down to a 6 by a shadow or a magical pool cannot switch to a new class. New rules would have to be created to allow them to do so.

I think that this wouldn't fall under the "character with two classes" rule, since you would be giving up the old class completely. That's for when you want to benefit from the old class.

This would be in the sub silentio "gave up your class rule," that applies when you are a defrocked monk, or a reincarnated character, or the other examples, and you just have to qualify for the new class. Because you don't have the option of using your old abilities later.

 

[rgard]

Dragon 53-

Question:
My monk with a dexterity of 15 was hit in the leg by an arrow. The DM said there would be a temporary loss of 3 dexterity points, and later he said that one of those points would be lost permanently. He took away half of my experience points (the character was first level) and said I’d have to change classes because the character no longer met the minimum requirements for being a monk.. Is this proper? If I change, would I keep any of the abilities of the former class?

Answer-
It sounds like you’ve willingly accepted the “fact” that you have permanently lost a point of dexterity from a relatively minor wound — yet that’s really the heart of your problem. It seems as though your DM was determined to find a way to keep you from playing that character as a monk. This sage doesn’t have ESP, of course, and it’s impossible to know the details of this incident, but any DM who decides to have such a tragedy befall a firstlevel character had better have a very good reason for acting that way. There is nothing in the AD&D rules to suggest that a character has to abandon his or her chosen class because of a drop in an ability score anyway. Ability scores are not infrequently raised or lowered by various magical means, and by certain types of psionic attacks. The life of a character or a long-running campaign would be thrown into disorder if characters were forced to change classes every time an ability score fell below the minimum number originally needed to qualify for membership in that class. If it were mandatory for a character to change class whenever an important ability score was lowered during the course of an adventure, what would be the fate of, for instance, a character rendered feebleminded by a psionic blast attack? Such a character, with (by definition) a combined intelligence and wisdom score of 0-5 for the duration of the feeblemind effect, technically doesn’t qualify for any class of adventurer. There are certain types of magical attacks which cause the loss of a point of strength or some other attribute. Losses of this kind are sometimes only temporary (the strength drain of a shadow, for instance), and even so-called “permanent” changes can be counteracted by different magical means at a later time. There may be occasions when a character has lost so much of his original attribute score that it is not practical or healthy to continue in the same class: A human fighter who has his strength reduced to, say, 6 points is risking ruin if he sets out on an adventure in that condition, and the character might stand a better chance of survival in the long run if he decided to take up magic-using (assuming a sufficiently high intelligence to do that). But the choice should belong to the character and player, not to the DM. In the descriptions of the fighter, paladin and thief player character classes in the Players Handbook, the rules state that certain minimum ability scores are needed to “become” a member of that class. The same reasoning should be applied to those classes where the same wording is not used. In other words, minimum requirements have to be met when a character begins a career in a class, but not necessarily at all times thereafter while that profession is being pursued.


However, the strictures are much more harsh regarding other issues- such as the character with two classes (human "multiclassing), alignment restrictions, and so on. In those cases, the default rule is usually .... you're screwed. See, e.g.- Dragon 53-

Question-
If a monk’s alignment changes from lawful to neutral or chaotic, does he become a thief?
Answer-
Not necessarily. A monk whose alignment changes with respect to law and chaos “loses all monk abilities and must begin again as a first-level character,” according to the Players Handbook. The character’s new class can be anything else. It stands to reason that most “defrocked” monks would choose to be a fighter, cleric or thief, because the prime requisites for those classes are the abilities for which a monk must always have above-average scores. But it’s not impossible for a monk character to have a high intelligence as well as the other high scores, in which case that character might decide to begin again as a magic-user.

I guess I should have appealed my illusionist's fiery end to Sage Advice.

 

[rgard]

This doesn't quite qualify as an obscure rule, but I loved the Etiquette non-Weapon Proficiency. For me it also captures the fundamental difference in approach to this stuff between TSR and WOTC era:

What's a non-weapon proficiency anyway?